


The Bachelors’ Breakfast Club

by bellepeppertronix



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:50:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2089461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellepeppertronix/pseuds/bellepeppertronix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our friends at BLU eat breakfast one morning. When Sniper doesn't show up, the Scout goes out to investigate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bachelors’ Breakfast Club

Nine times out of ten, when you woke up in Gold Rush, you woke up to some ungodly loud noise.  
If you were lucky, it would just be the Soldier playing his wake-up call on his trumpet. 

If you were _unlucky_ , it might be the battle-start klaxons, or worse still, the high, tight whistle of the desert wind--sharp, viciously fast, and often carrying tumbleweeds the size of Saint Bernards--whipping through the place, carrying on it the dull mutter of gathering thunder.

The battle-start alarms were the mildest of the bunch, truth be told. The wind would sometimes get so bad they couldn’t walk upright, and everyone but the Heavy and the Soldier would be staggering around just doing their damndest to stay on their feet. 

Rain in that place meant one of two things--either a) a flash flood, or b) a heavy shower followed by a slow steady drizzle, during and after which everything suddenly and irrevocably turned into mud. That meant that pushing that stupid fucking bomb would be an exercise in horrific slippery death, with the RED Engineer setting up sentries in seemingly-ridiculous places, traps just waiting to reduce any unfortunate BLU to Swiss cheese.  
The Scout groaned softly. 

It sounded like today was some godawful combination of trumpet-plus-thunder.

These guys were crazy. They were crazy, and he was never, ever going to get a proper night's sleep again. Who the fuck actually woke up at first light like this? Like, the reason he'd joined BLU was because it _wasn’t_ the Army, so he didn't have to do all this shit!

He thought this as he muzzily kicked the blankets off, groped around in the dim light until his hand hit the light switch, and then rolled out of bed in a display of early-morning-clumsiness that was in no way a reflection of the way he normally was.

He was just awake enough to be embarrassed when he stumbled over one of his shoes, then again on a pile of--was that where that extra undershirt went? Or was that a pile of socks? No, it was socks--until finally he made it to the door.

~

Everyone else was already up, crowded into the mess hall-slash-kitchen, talking quietly.

Another thing he was never, ever going to get over was how freaking _weird_ his team was. Most of them were still in their pajamas; the Pyro was wearing a blue mechanic’s coverall instead of their asbestos suit, and missing their boots. Instead, they were wearing ratty navy-blue carpet slippers and a pair of sky-blue socks with little yellow duckies on them. He could see the Demoman was wearing black sweats, and had a little blue beanie on in place of his usual black one. The dark-skinned man was yawning and toying absently with a fork, drawing swirls in something sticky and brown on his white plate. 

The Medic was wearing an honest-to-goodness pair of grandpa pajamas, white with navy blue pinstripes. His hair, without any of the pomade he used, looked almost comically fluffy and soft. The Heavy, sitting beside him, was wearing a plain white crew-neck t-shirt and gray sweatpants. He was reading a book while he and the Medic absent-mindedly shared a plate of--

"Hey!" the Scout hollered, his voice cracking with sleep. He was too mad to be embarrassed, though, and he continued, "Is that French toast? No way! That's freakin' French toast! How come's you guys never wake me up for anything good!"

"Ah. He is awake," the Spy said. He was already dressed, in his shirtsleeves and blue pinstriped slacks, his long white chef's apron tied on over everything. His back was to the table, and the Scout could see he was standing over the big stove, apparently watching a skillet. "I was wondering when the quiet would come to its inevitable, crashing end."

"Mornin', Scout!" the Engineer said. He waved a little; he was wearing his overalls, the bib unbuttoned and the straps hanging around his legs. Under that, he was only wearing a white A-shirt that had a slight bluish tint, from having been washed with so many blue things. The Scout knew this because all HIS formerly-white clothes were turning out the same way. The only people whose stuff stayed immaculately white were the Spy and the Medic, and he didn't understand how either of them did it.

"Hell YEAH, I'm awake! No thanks to you guys! Seriously!"  
"Scout, the Soldier wakes every Monday morning at sunrise to play his atrocious little trumpet-call. We have all grown accustomed, and now we simply rise before it. That way, we are already awake and do not have to deal with any unpleasant surprises. Such as being jarred awake by an absolutely awful song." the Medic said this as he adjusted his glasses.

The Scout grumbled a little, but slouched over to the fridge, which he pulled open.  
Inside, he saw that they were down to only half a jug of milk; he slammed the door and swung around, swearing.  
"What the fuck, guys! Who drank all the milk?"

The Spy snorted, from where he was standing in front of the stove.  
"Garcon, how do you think pain perdu--your precious 'French toast'--is made?"  
"I don't freakin' know, ya jackass, all's I know is, all'a you guys got French toast, and DIDN'T SAVE ME NONE, and there ain't even enough milk to have cereal!"  
"Alors, what is that phrase...ah. Where were you, Scout, when they were handing out brains?"

"What? Hey, man, fuck YOU! It's first thing in the freakin' morning, you guys didn't save me ANY of the good breakfast, and--and--there ain't even milk left for cereal!" he finished. He knew he was repeating himself, but he felt it bore repeating: insult added to injury. What was he supposed to do, go into one of the sheds and chew on the piles and piles of fool's-gold? 

A decent breakfast would have been the one thing that would've saved his morning. He was already stuck thinking about spending a really, really shitty day pushing the damn cart _in the mud_ as a cold rain came down on them and thunder boomed every now and then, but on top of that, he'd probably have to settle on eating, like, oatmeal for breakfast. Like he was a damn sick little kid or something.

"Scout, jest come and set down," the Engineer said. He scooted his chair a little to one side, making room at the table for the Scout.  
When the boy made no move towards the table, he offered, "I'll let ya have two of my pieces of toast."

"Do not, Labourer. The boy has to learn that if he wants decent meals, he will get up at decent hours."  
"Fuck you, asshole! 'Dawn' ain't no kind of decent hour!" the Scout snapped.  
"Scout, it's all right," the Engineer said.

The Spy made a disgusted noise and turned back to the stove.  
So the Scout plopped down in the chair next to the Engineer's, and took a plate off the top of the still-warm stack on the lazy-Susan in the table's center. 

He watched with equal parts fascination and disgust as the Pyro proceeded to make a pyramid out of their pieces of toast, then a little cabin, then finally a square, until he gritted his teeth and mumbled, "Ain't you even gonna eat those? Or are you really just gonna sit there playin' with 'em in front of me?"

The Pyro curled their arms up, crossing them in front of their chest, and made a hurt little noise, like a stepped-on puppy.

"Scout, you don't need to be rude," the Engineer said. True to his word, he slipped two slices of his own toast off the stack on his plate, and onto the Scout's empty plate.

The Scout could see that, spread out to the other side of the Engineer's plate, there was a graph paper sketchpad cluttered with drawings of sentries, labeled in his neat writing. The older man hadn't even touched his breakfast yet; it looked like he'd been too engrossed with working.  
"Thanks, Engie. At least SOMEONE'S not a total freakin'--"

A moment later the Spy descended on him, clamping one hand down hard on his shoulder.  
The Scout started to twist away, his mouth opening to complain, but the Spy spoke first.  
"Here, garcon."  
The Frenchman looked the Engineer in the face. "I do _not_ condone encouraging this kind of behavior, Labourer."

The Spy placed a second plate--piled high with French toast slices and even a nice crinkly brown-and-pink slice of bacon, and a smallish mound of scrambled eggs.  
"Aww! Fuck yeah!" the Scout said, "Hey! Uh--I--well--thanks, Spy. You're all right!"

The Spy said, "Hmm. Next time, before you begin throwing a tantrum like the child you are, I suggest you check the stove--I always leave pans of extra food there."  
"...Oh." the Scout said. He wanted to ask how long the Spy had been doing that for, but felt too stupid to say anything else. 

The Medic made a noise that might have been amusement or annoyance--really, he could never tell with that guy--as the Scout grabbed the maple syrup off the lazy-Susan and poured some over his breakfast.

The Scout had just started eating when the Soldier came marching into the kitchen.  
They all acknowledged him with nods, except for the Engineer, who stood up and saluted him.

The Scout shook his head a little, and continued to inhale his breakfast.  
"Yo, Spy, you're actually a pretty good cook, you know that? I mean, it ain't nothin' on my grandma's, but," he made a pleased noise around his mouthful of syrupy toast.  
The Spy regarded him archly, and hummed lightly from behind his mug. (The only person who caught his small smile was the Engineer, and that was because he was looking hard for it.)

"Hey, where's the Sniper?" the Scout asked, after a moment.  
Everyone paused a moment; the Medic and Heavy recovered fastest.  
"Herr Sniper prefers to eat his meals alone. Usually he comes in after us." the Medic explained.

"But it'll be cold!" the Scout said. "You can't eat French toast cold! That's the nastiest shit ever! Almost as bad as cold pizza!"  
The Engineer shrugged a little. "Well, if he minds, he ain't said anything about it."  
“But--you--” the Scout started to protest.

Everyone gave him bland looks, except the Engineer, who raised one eyebrow.  
“Yes, Scout?”  
“You can’t just leave the poor guy out there hungry, an’ then let him eat _cold_ French toast for breakfast! What about the syrup? Hello?” he continued, gesturing around.  
“We-e-ell,” the Engineer said, rubbing his neck, “I reckon someone could take it out to him.”

The Scout looked around the table. Everyone else--barring the Pyro--was in the middle of their meal; he had just started into his.  
He sighed and rolled his eyes.  
“Well, don’t everyone jump up at once or nothin’. Gimme the plate, I’ll take it to ‘im,” he mumbled. 

~

So he got half-dressed, putting on his shoes and a jacket over his pajamas, feeling ridiculous. But he said he'd do it, and so he'd do it, and--

\--And there he was, carrying a warm foil-wrapped plate out to the gates. The Sniper parked his truck near where all the broken-down company trucks were, and he could see the camper's little window was a waxy, friendly yellow square through the day's dim, gloomy blue light. When he was close enough, he could see it was shielded by a little ruffly white curtain. 

He almost smiled. Like the guy's mom had decorated it for him, to remind him of home.  
Suddenly he didn't feel the least bit scornful.  
He mostly felt jealous.

Hell, the only thing he had from home to remind him of his Ma was an old faded snapshot of her with him-- _just_ him, an impossible rarity, since he had so many brothers. Sure, the picture was from when he was, like, six, starting his first day of first grade. But it was all he had, and his Ma had never looked happier, had never looked prouder of him.

He realized he'd been staring at the camper van's door for a long while. Suddenly self-conscious (and very worried that the food would get cold and his mission would be a pointless failure) he knocked on the door.

There was a creak from inside the camper, then the hollow sound of footfalls on the aluminum floor, and then the Sniper opened the door--just a crack, causing the safety-chain to snap taut.

"Hello? Who's there?"  
"Yeah, uh," the Scout said, blinking. "So, it's me..."  
God, he thought, I am the world’s _biggest_ rube. 

But then he held up the plate, like it was both an explanation and an apology, and as he was looking up, and up (and _up_ ; geeze, the guy was tall) at his face, he had just enough time to wonder what he might be hiding in that camper, that was so important he couldn't come inside.

The smell coming out of the Sniper's van was this weird combination of skunky and sweet, with a bare, sharp tang of sweat underneath everything: laundry soap, coffee, and reefer.  
"What...what do you want?"

The Scout shuffled his feet a little, feeling more and more awkward with every second, until he said, "I, um. Spy'n'them said you never came down for breakfast, but Spy made French toast, 'cept he called it pan-per-do or something, which I guess is just how you say French toast in French. Anyway, my grandma would make it for us in the morning when we went to visit her--uh, you know, when I was a kid--and, uh, it's nasty if you try to eat it cold, so since Spy was weirdly nice to me an' made me a fresh plate, I decided to come out an' bring you yours, so you wouldn't have to eat nasty cold French toast." The Scout paused and took a breath. When Sniper didn't immediately respond, he screwed up his face and added, "'Cuz it's Monday, and Mondays suck bad enough as it is."

"Oh. Er." there was a soft sound as the Sniper closed the door, fanning the Scout with a whiff of camper-air stronger than the little taste he'd first gotten. For a second he thought the other man wasn't going to open the door again, and he raised his hand to bang on it and yell about the food, when he heard the chain click loose and the door swung all the way open.

“Thanks...come on inside, then.” the Sniper said.  
“Uh, yeah. Thanks, man...” the Scout said. He had to watch the step, though, because it was narrow and rickety-looking.

When he stepped inside and looked up, he almost jumped back out the door, though, jerking the plate sideways as he did.  
"What the _fuck_ , man, you got, like, a huge freakin' bird in here! You gotta close your window or somethin'!" the Scout squawked.

The Sniper looked between the Scout and the bird--a brown owl with red eyes and weird furry feet--which was just sort of sitting on the table.  
It blinked at him, its eyes growing huge, and shuffled away. He watched it go hopping down onto one of the seats beside the table.

After a moment, it popped its head up over the table's edge and blinked at him some more.  
"Aww, that's just Sir Hootsalot. Careful around 'im, you don't wanna hurt the little fella," the Australian said.

"Yeah," the Scout said, "Me, hurt a freakin' gigantic bird, with razor-sharp claws. Sure."  
"He's not a bad sort," the Sniper said. He pulled the camper door shut behind the Scout, and then shuffled past him in the tight space, moving to stand beside the table.

The owl shuffled to the edge of the seat and fluffed up its feathers. The Sniper reached down as casually as you would when reaching to pet your cat, and gently riffled the feathers on the back of its neck. The owl's eyes half-closed.

"Dumb as a bag of rocks, but he's just about the nicest, tamest bird you could meet," the Sniper said. "Poor bugger flew headfirst into me camper's windshield one night. Found 'im onna ground outside, hoppin' around like. Dunno if he can fly anymore; hit his head pretty good."

He scratched the back of the owl's neck some more, the bird bending its head forward to let him, even shuffling closer to him and bobbing in place, frilling its feathers up, when he stopped petting it.

The Sniper picked up a heavy leather glove that the Scout hadn't noticed from the opposite chair, and slipped it on. He knelt and held his arm out, and the bird stepped down onto his wrist, swiveling its head around and blinking its gigantic eyes as he stood back up.

"You can pet 'im, if you're gentle-like, and don't move too fast," the Sniper offered, after a moment.  
The Scout hesitated a moment, then said, "Ah--naw, that's cool. He's, uh. He's kinda got really big claws? And the last thing I petted that had claws was my grandma's cat, and she hates me, so..."  
The Sniper surprised him by laughing. 

"You've gotta show predatory creatures you're a friend. Try food--treats an' like." he suggested. "I got this little fella to calm down after a few pieces of grilled chicken. Not great for him, I s'pose, but then, neither was flying headfirst into plate glass."  
He turned and let the owl hop back off.

They watched the owl shuffle around on the seat. He hopped down onto the floor, flapping his wings awkwardly, and the Scout stared at the beautiful mottled browns and grays barring the bird's wings for the moments that he closed them.

He twirled his head around on his neck to look back at them, blinking, and then turned in a circle, his head staying in place and his body coming back around to meet it.  
The Scout burst out laughing.

Now that he'd calmed down and wasn't scared it was going fly at him and scratch his eyes out or anything like that, he took his time getting a look around.

The camper was exactly like a tiny apartment--only a bit smaller then his room back in the base, except it wasn't concrete and didn't feel like a prison cell. There was soft, muted music playing on a radio somewhere, someone twanging a guitar and singing, the voice too low for anything but the long, drawn-out vowels to surface. 

To his left there was a tiny nook with a tinier sink and a little two-foot-by-two-foot square of countertop, both of them the kind of beige-mottled formica you only ever found in cafeterias and cheap motel kitchenettes. 

A coffee machine was pushed into the corner of the countertop and held there with neat lines of duct tape. The wood of the cabinets beneath the sink and the countertop was blond pine, and the floor underfoot was covered in linoleum the same beige-brown as the countertops. 

The walls were faded and had once been canary-yellow; he could see there were stiff brown drapes pulled back to the sides, exposing the white curtains underneath. To the right there was the table nook, which looked like a little restaurant booth, with a tabletop that matched the countertops, and booth seats upholstered in dark brown vinyl. A calendar hung just over the sink, things scribbled on it in handwriting that Scout couldn't read because he was terrible at reading cursive. 

To the back, just over the driver's cab, he could see the edge of a mattress poking out over the overhang, held in place with a metal railing that gave way on one side to a narrow metal ladder. 

"So, this is your place, huh?" the Scout said, finally.  
The Sniper shrugged a little, his eyes going to the floor. "S'homey enough for one bloke an' a little friend."

The Scout realized that the older man thought he was being an ass, and he was trying his damndest to be nice.

“What? No, no, I mean--I didn’t mean it like that--I mean, i didn’t mean it in a fuck-you, this-is-stupid kinda way or nothin’--i meant it for reals, like, the rooms back in the base ain’t half as nice, an’ we do all kindsa shit to ‘em to make ‘em more comfortable, an’ they still ain’t--anyway your van’s real cool, man, I mean it.” he said.

He finally remembered to take a breath a full beat after the Sniper had leveled a flat, unreadable look at him.  
“Thanks, mate,” the taller man said, at last.  
“Yeah,” the Scout said.  
The conversation stalled. 

The Scout was thinking dismal thoughts about the Sniper thinking he was nothing but a dumb kid--about the older man accepting the plate from him, waiting until he left, and then tossing the food out, probably because he thought the Scout had messed with it as a prank.  
He sighed.

“Anyway, uh,” he said, and held out the plate. “Here’s your food.”  
“Thanks again,” the Sniper said.  
There was an ominous mutter of thunder from outside. 

“I, uh. I guess I better get back to the base,” the Scout began.  
“...Yeah, I s’pose.” the Sniper said. Then, awkwardly, “...Thanks...”  
“Yeah, no problem,” the Scout said. 

He hadn’t made it halfway back to the building when there was _another_ boom of thunder overhead, and a flash of lighting so brilliant his eyes watered; a few seconds later the rain was coming down in sheets. The Scout was half-soaked by the time he realized running for the base was a lost cause.

He ducked under the eaves of one of the side-buildings and looked back towards the base, feeling forlorn and weird and stupid.

No good deed went unpunished, he thought. Then chuckled at how quick he was, remembering the phrase on the spot.  
There was another crack of thunder, so loud he flinched and covered his ears.  
“Fuck. Seriously?” he whined.

He looked between the base--which he _might_ be able to reach if he sprinted full-tilt (and didn’t hit any mud patches and trip) and the Sniper’s van, much closer, the shutters tilted to admit the candle-yellow glow of the light inside.  
It wasn’t really a choice.

When the Sniper reopened the door, the Scout was standing there, back hunched, shirt wringing wet, hair plastered to his forehead, shivering and thoroughly miserable. He let him in without saying anything.

~

“Sorry to drip all over your stuff,” the Scout said.  
“Nah, s’all right.” the Sniper said.

The Scout stood in the entryway with his hands in his armpits, fighting off shivers.  
The older man got a towel from the cabinet by the sink, which he handed to him, and the Scout dried his hair and face and arms, feeling somehow even more ridiculous.

He watched the Sniper lift up one of the little booth-seats, revealing several pairs of pants, neatly folded and stacked on end, beside several shirts, all of which had been rolled up and stowed side-by-side, like posters.

“Got some dry things, if you’d rather...” the older man began, somewhat sheepishly.  
“Yeah, that’s--that would be great--” the Scout said.

But after the Sniper handed the Scout the dry clothes, they both stood there awkwardly staring at each other, until the Sniper cleared his throat and mumbled, “Er. Haven’t got much in the way of privacy; rather tight for all that, but I’ll...” and he shuffled around, to face the other way.

The Scout turned his back to to the other man and hastily changed, his ears burning.  
The Sniper was about two inches taller than he was, and wider at the hip, so the pants didn’t quite fit and the shirt was a bit too big. He started to roll the sleeves up and noticed some orange-ish stains on one cuff.

“Uh, hey, I don’t wanna be a jerk, but this shirt has some...um...”  
“Ah, sorry, I can get you a different one,” the Sniper said. “S’just a bit of taco salsa. Must’ve missed it when i stuck it inna wash.”

The Scout turned to face him, almost tripping over his own untied shoes in his eagerness.  
“Tacos? Around here? Where?” 

“A little hole inna wall in town.” the Sniper said. His back was to the Scout still. “Are you, er...”  
“Huh? Oh, yeah, I ain’t naked and wet anymore, you can turn around,” the Scout said.  
(And cringed internally the moment the words left his mouth; _god_ , he thought, that wasn’t even _funny_ , just _weird_...)  
After a moment, he glanced back over his shoulder, and relaxed the tiniest bit when he saw the Scout fully-dressed. 

The Sniper slipped into the booth-seat and the Scout sat down opposite him. A moment later the owl hopped down from its perch-basket where it dangled from the bed’s side-rail, and lit a bit clumsily on the backrest of the seat nearest the Sniper.

“...Y’like Mexican food, too?” the Sniper asked. The Scout prayed he wasn’t imagingin the gleam of eagerness that passed over his face.

He forged ahead on the belief that it was real, half-thinking that even if it was forced, a random conversation about tacos was better than sitting in silence in a tiny apartment with a guy he barely knew.

“Hell yeah! Well, before I moved out West--out this way, I mean--I hadn’t ever even tasted Mexican food. I mean, there was a bunch’a Italian places--couple good pizza places and one or two really fancy joints, but nothing else. No Mexican food, not, uh--not, you know, tacos or burritos or nothin’. 

“An’ then, the first time I had vacation here, jeez, it was so hot, I was lookin’ for a payphone to call my ma--you know, i went to the city, so i wasn’t stuck on-base--an’ it was right outside this place, ‘Donna Maria’s Tacos’, or somethin’. So I called my ma and talked to her an’ everything, but she got busy an’ had to go, an’ i was STARVIN’, an’ I didn’t wanna have to wait ‘til I got all the way back to the base to eat, right? I mean, wow, my stomach was gurglin’ like i was freakin’ dyin’. 

“So i went into the place an’ i just kinda...uh...well, pointed at the menu, and the girl behind the counter asks me for a buck-fifty and then gives me these,” he made a hand gesture, spreading his palms wide, “Like, GIANT carne asada tacos. Holy crap, man, they were freakin’ huge, like, four huge tacos. I asked for extra onion and she kinda smiled at me and gave me a huge-ass pile of diced onions on a separate plate, y’know, with that parsley stuff kinda tossed over ‘em. 

“An’ I’m goin’ to town ‘cause I was STARVIN’ an’ you can’t just put steak down in front’a a hungry guy and NOT have him horf the stuff down,” the Sniper chuckled for real, and the Scout found himself smiling, too, “--An’ I’m loadin’ ‘em down with onion, an’ the girl brings me a thing’a chips an’ I almost DIE, they’re so good. --I never had tortilla chips’n’salsa before that, either--anyway. So I go to get back on the bus--get this--” he sat up a little straighter in the chair, grinning as he remembered, and the story picking up steam. 

“So i get back on the bus, an’ I ask the guy if it goes past the BLU Line Rail Depot. The guy gives me this look like I slapped him with a rotten fish! An’ then he just kinda points at the bus route things, you know those little booklets they have, an’ I grab one to check. So I thank the guy and he literally HOLDS HIS BREATH and just nods. I’m thinkin’, okay, he knows I work for BLU, i remember Engie told me we ain’t exactly popular with the locals, whatever--but then NOBODY would sit by me on the bus, or talk to me, or nothin’!” he paused a minute, glancing at the Sniper

The older man was watching him with a slight smile, one hand straying to stroke the feathers on top of the owl’s head. 

“So I’m sitting on the bus, right, wondering why everyone is sitting kinda cringing away from me, thinkin’ I don’t LOOK like a cold-blooded merc killer. But I realized somethin’ was WAY, WAY off when this wino who smelled like spilled booze and sweaty feet took one look at me, got up, an’ moved away.”

The Sniper made a noise--the Scout couldn’t tell exactly _what_ kind, he sort of grumbled under his breath, but he dropped his elbow onto the table and leaned forward, towards the Scout.  
“What was it?” he asked.

“Really freakin’ embarrassing. So then when i come home, I go to say hi to Engie an’ he looks kinda like he wants to hurl, but doesn’t say nothin’, just gives me a toothbrush and one of those Serious Looks, you know, when he’s tryin’ ta tellya something without being’ a dick. An’ I realized I must’a had _awful_ onion-breath, an’ that was why no one would sit by me or talk to me the whole bus-ride back to base!” the Scout finished, laughing at his own story.  
The Sniper laughed, too, a low quiet chuckle. 

The Scout was privately marveling at how he had A) not been thrown out, B) had a real adult conversation where the other guy _actually listened_ and didn’t try to lecture him, and C) the guy was nice enough to let him borrow clothes.  
Speaking of which...

“Oh, shit, we prob’ly should’a put these somewhere to dry,” he said, gesturing at his own clothes--wadded sadly up on the seat behind him. 

“No worries,” the Sniper said. He took the shirt and pants and folded them over the rungs of the built-in ladder leading up to his bunk.  
“So how’d you get a taste for Mexican food?” the Scout asked.

He was privately hoping the Sniper would tell him about how he had to go down to Tijuana or Mexico City and do a stake-out on a rooftop for seven days, waiting to kill some kingpin for big bucks, but the Sniper just resettled himself comfortably in the booth seat and sighed.

“I like travelin’, both for work and pleasure. I like bein’ out-of-doors, movin’ around. Half the fun’s goin’ different places, seein’ different things, eatin’ different food. Never had a busload of folks cringe away from me awful onion-breath, though,” the Sniper said--and smiled for real.

He had really long teeth, the Scout thought absently, and he looked rangy and older and somehow wild. And of course his accent--his voice in general--was really cool, and made everything he said sound ten times more interesting; the Scout figured even if the older man was just reading a section of phone book, it would still sound interesting. 

The Scout could feel his ears burning again. He stammered a nervous laugh and looked away, beating himself up for always making things weird. One day, he thought, someone was going to catch onto him and beat the hell out of him; it didn’t need to be today.

There was a soft crinkle of foil as the Sniper uncovered the plate, little tendrils of steam wafting up off it.

“I didn’t know how much syrup you liked, so I kind of put it off on one side.” the Scout muttered. “I, uh, sorry if it got into your bacon or eggs too much...”  
“Everything looks great,” the Sniper said, leaning over he plate slightly and sniffing. “Smells terrific, too. Then again, Spy’s food usually does.”

The Scout snorted a laugh. “Yeah. Wish he wasn’t such a jerk about it sometimes, though,” he said.

“Aw, he’s all right, most of the time,” the Sniper said, smiling his crooked little smile again. “Nice enough to always leave a plate aside for me.”

He went and got a fork and tucked into the food, making appreciative noises every now and then.

After a moment he froze and gave the Scout a weird look.  
The Scout froze, too, feeling panic start to well inside himself. “What?”  
“Did...you want some?” the Sniper asked.

“Huh? Aw, naw! I already ate. S’just...they said you always came to eat last, an’ I thought, seriously, who eats cold French toast? --So I brought it for you.” the Scout said.  
The Sniper relaxed, smiling again--a small, half-guarded smile. 

He finished his breakfast in quiet, the Scout staring out the window at the landscape around them. 

The sky was an attractive gray-purple, the sun not yet in the sky. He wished he had a camera to snap a picture or something, but then it wouldn’t have been able to fully capture the whole mood, he thought--weirdly peaceful, just a little tense, like the whole world was waiting for something to happen.

He didn’t realize how long he’d been sitting there until the van rocked slightly and he heard the soft clink of the Sniper rinsing off the plate and fork in the tiny sink. The older man washed the plate, wiped it down, and then the fork, and set them on top of the coffee-machine.

There was another dull mutter of thunder in the distance, this time not accompanied by any blinding flashes of lightning.  
“Sounds like the storm’s movin’ off,” the Sniper said. 

“Yeah?” the Scout asked. He was wracking his brains for things to _say_ , something else to make the taciturn man laugh at him like he was really funny, or just to get him to say something else back to him.

In the end, though, as suddenly as the rain had started, it stopped, leaving only a soft pattering in its wake, and then a dripping near-silence.

“Your clothes’re nearly dry, as well,” the Sniper added.  
The Scout felt sheepish and awkward all over again.  
“Hey, yeah. Thanks, man...” he shuffled past the table nook--trying not to be visibly creeped-out by the owl, whose head swiveled to follow him, its red eyes blinking--and grabbed his shirt and pants off the ladder rungs. 

His pants were completely dry, but his shirt was still damp enough that, when he squeezed it, his palm came away wet. He sighed a little.

“Doesn’t sound like there’ll be a battle today,” the Australian said. “If you like, you could just wear my stuff back to base, an’ bring it back the next time you come ‘round.”

The Scout brightened, relieved at the thought of not having to slog back to the base--in mud that was probably ankle-deep, by then--in damp clothes.  
“Yeah! You got a deal man!”  
They shook, the Sniper giving him this little half-smile that the Scout had no idea what he was supposed to do with. 

He wadded his own clothes up and stuck them under one arm, and had just stepped off the little metal step when he remembered the plate and utensils.  
“Good thing you did,” the Sniper said. “Spy would’ve had your guts for garters.”  
The Scout snorted. “It ain’t Spy who’d’a been after me, it’s ENGIE. I swear, he thinks i break ‘em on purpose.”

The Sniper scratched his chin, humming. “Be a good way to get outta washin’ ‘em.”  
The Scout blinked twice at the older man before bursting into laughter. After a moment the Sniper joined him.

The Sniper calmed down first. “Ahh, thanks for comin’ out, mate. Tell Spy everything was great.”  
“Yeah, yeah, sure. An’ thanks for the clothes an’ stuff.” The Scout paused, then added, “I’ll see you ‘round.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have devolved into a helpless fluff-generating machine.


End file.
